Gettin' to the ridge is top priority at Silverton. (Silverton/Facebook)

You’d expect the offseason around Silverton Mountain to be more about tourist trains, wilderness backpacking and RV touring than on-the-snow news. But the summer of 2017 has been busy time for the powder-only ski and snowboard area tucked into a crease of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains.

Plenty of new lift-access powder to go for at Powder Mountain (Powder Mountain/Facebook)

If you’re searching to find the largest in-bounds terrain in the United States, look no further than Powder Mountain in northern Utah.

This season, ownership will have 1,000 more skiable acres and two new lifts up and running by opening day in December. The lifts will open up terrain that was guide-only, and provide access to a pair of planned mountain villages with up to 500 total home sites.

The additional acreage within its ropes means Powder Mountain is once again the largest ski and snowboard area in the country: 7,957 acres. It surpasses Park City Mountain for No. 1 with this expansion.

Skier and snowboarders at “Pow’ Mow’” will be able to ride a lift into Mary’s and Lefty’s canyons very soon, as mid-December has been set for the unveiling.

Also, the owners are capping the number of season passes at 1,000, and lift tickets to 2,000 each day to avoid congestion.

For years, Powder Mountain has been a secret snow stash above Ogden that harnesses chairlifts, snowcats and school buses to get powder hounds into untracked territory -- on any given day. All but the snowcat areas are inbounds, including terrain below James Peak and Hidden Lake Peak, and in Cobabe Canyon.

In 2013, a group of entrepreneurs paid $40 million for the property as home for conferences and think-tank gatherings.

Early development plans in got slimmed down, and now it’s a pair of villages that “is to embody a next-generation urbanism that nourishes social entrepreneurship, connection and collaboration, and responsible living,” said Powder Mountain’s JP Goulet.

Powderhound cuts a fresh line through trees at Whisper Ridge in northern Utah. (Whisper Ridge/Facebook)

The Wasatch Front above Salt Lake City has long been a backcountry paradise for skiers and snowboarders willing to take a hike beyond the trams, gondolas and lifts at a dozen of Utah’s winter resorts. Now, there’s something in between.

Talk about time sneaking up on you. If you’re close enough to consider a season pass to Utah resorts, it feels like just a few months ago we were debating whether the Mountain Collective should be the only pass you purchase.